Mi Fu Bu Hi Mu
Aug 27, 2022, 08:28 AM
Japanese prefixes for words of negation, removal, absence and obsolescence. English equivalent prefixes include Ob De Ab Im Dis.
Vocalisations for Japanese sounds of negation are drawn from the source sample and used in the work.
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This piece is a lament for the Ainu, indigenous people of the islands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, now identified as part of the northern Japanese archipelago. The Ainu people settled these islands several thousand years before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese.
For centuries, seudo-scientific racial ideologies, which included the false belief of the superiority of the Yamato character, marked the indigenous Ainu as “sub-human primitives”, making illegal their language, culture, right to gather and hunt. Eugenicist theories justified “racial improvements” to the indigenous population, with forced sterilisation and rape of Ainu women by “pureblood” minzoku. Male and female Ainu populations were separated, with males exiled to southern Japan to work as debentured slaves.
As recently as 2020 the Japanese prime minister celebrated Japan as the world’s oldest monoculture, negating further what limited visibility and rights the Ainu people may have in law.*
As a consequence of systematic erasure by the Japanese, the Ainu language is one of the most critically endangered. There are only two fluent speakers left on earth.
endangeredlanguages.com/lang/1212
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Technical notes
The piece was recorded in a single take as a live improvisation using only the source sample. Vocalisations for the Japanese sounds of negation are drawn from the source sample and used in the performance.
The work was made using Leafcutter John’s Forester-2022.
leafcutterjohn.com/forester-2022/
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*It is worth noting that until 1981 indigenous Australians were required to identify themselves on the national census as “Flora and Fauna” with no reference to their being human.
Composition by Simon Kennedy.
This is part of the Obsolete Sounds project, the world’s biggest collection of disappearing sounds and sounds that have become extinct – remixed and reimagined to create a brand new form of listening. Explore the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/obsolete-sounds
Vocalisations for Japanese sounds of negation are drawn from the source sample and used in the work.
------------------
This piece is a lament for the Ainu, indigenous people of the islands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, now identified as part of the northern Japanese archipelago. The Ainu people settled these islands several thousand years before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese.
For centuries, seudo-scientific racial ideologies, which included the false belief of the superiority of the Yamato character, marked the indigenous Ainu as “sub-human primitives”, making illegal their language, culture, right to gather and hunt. Eugenicist theories justified “racial improvements” to the indigenous population, with forced sterilisation and rape of Ainu women by “pureblood” minzoku. Male and female Ainu populations were separated, with males exiled to southern Japan to work as debentured slaves.
As recently as 2020 the Japanese prime minister celebrated Japan as the world’s oldest monoculture, negating further what limited visibility and rights the Ainu people may have in law.*
As a consequence of systematic erasure by the Japanese, the Ainu language is one of the most critically endangered. There are only two fluent speakers left on earth.
endangeredlanguages.com/lang/1212
------------------
Technical notes
The piece was recorded in a single take as a live improvisation using only the source sample. Vocalisations for the Japanese sounds of negation are drawn from the source sample and used in the performance.
The work was made using Leafcutter John’s Forester-2022.
leafcutterjohn.com/forester-2022/
------------------
*It is worth noting that until 1981 indigenous Australians were required to identify themselves on the national census as “Flora and Fauna” with no reference to their being human.
Composition by Simon Kennedy.
This is part of the Obsolete Sounds project, the world’s biggest collection of disappearing sounds and sounds that have become extinct – remixed and reimagined to create a brand new form of listening. Explore the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/obsolete-sounds